A lanky, tall and ungainly figure strode awkwardly to the rostrum. His limbs were long, and his hands were huge. His abundant black hair was unruly, and his clothes fit exceedingly ill. The audience must have found his looks unpromising, but as soon as he began to speak, it was clear that he commanded uncommon rhetorical power. He was all of 28 years old.

Abraham Lincoln’s “Address to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois,” delivered on January 27, 1838, is not his most famous speech, but it is his first famous speech. In it, he gave glimpses of the qualities that would one day make him the greatest orator, and perhaps the greatest leader, in American history. His stated topic, “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions,” has a haunting relevance for us today in a time of toxic polarization, rhetorical stridency and, increasingly, more-than-rhetorical calls for political violence. Ninescore and six years ago, the young Lincoln issued a warning that was wise beyond his years — one that beckons to us now.

Lincoln began by describing what he called an “ill-omen amongst us.” That omen, he continued, was “the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgement of Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice.” For Lincoln, law was the civic embodiment of reason. Passion, including political passion, was reason’s enemy and opposite.